Family Portrait
by Elithien
Summary: After Miriel's passing it is said she went with Vaire and helped her and her maidens weave their tapestries. Miriel begins to weawve but is this she sees before her?


Disclaimer- Everything in this story is taken from The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien.  
  
Her skilled hands, deft and adept, unwound the different coloured threads from the spools. They wound and threaded, slotted and eased threads here and there. Her foot pushed down on the peddle and the hands threaded the coloured threads to their places. She began to weave.  
  
Eyes fixed on the emerging picture at the uppermost of the loom, hands steady on the strands of colour. Threads twisted and turned, interlaced and weaved to form a display of colour, splendorous golds and red, a background like the waning of Laurelin, her light melting away to leave the shimmer of Varda's stars only.  
  
Eyes flickered from the peddle at her foot to where her hands were. The threads changed colour.  
  
Shadowed, dark and raven with the sheen of Telperion, dark and night, shadowed and raven with a crown of silvern leaves. Hair, his hair. She remembered it well, the feel of his hair through her fingers, her fingers which now worked away at the threads on the loom to preserve that feel and colour and texture.  
  
The threads changed colour again as if from her thoughts. They mixed again, twisted and turned, colours pale and subtle. His skin, pale and subtly woven with the colours of flesh. She remembered the feel of his skill well against her own.  
  
New colours entered the line from the spool. Grey and blue, like the fire of Helluin or Luinil, yet brighter, much brighter. Eyes, his eyes and how real did they look. Her Noldor eyes looked up into that if which she wove and it seemed to her that she looked into his real eyes. They were brighter than the stars of Tintall?, blue and grey, yet with more colour than any blossom by the hands of Yavanna. Beautiful they were and they bore knowledge that was keen and cleverly sly but loving and compassionate at the same. That look was in his eyes and she knew them well for they were for her.  
  
Threads she added, more and more and she wove on her golden loom. Threads she twisted and slowly, the beloved face if him came forth onto the tapestry. He looked the same and his face was clear and youthful, though many a year had gone by.  
  
Upon his lips was a smile and it relieved her as she wove his white garments to know him to be happy, though even were he not she would not return for her mind was made and the decision already taken.  
  
A heat she felt at her fingertips whilst she continued her work. Colours mixed and blended and new shades arrayed and she perceived through her coming tapestry whom she wove. Hair, dark and raven, with the sheen of Telperion. Brows, unfaltering and certain. Eyes, a reflection of Helluin and Luinil together and they were stubborn, resolute and firm of will. It was he, he whom she had passed her life to, though he seemed older than what she had thought him to be. A restlessness she felt in his hands as she wove them, a restlessness as her own.  
  
His raiment was too dark and shadowed, of blue like the deeps of water and the jewel he wore of same sort upon his chest. Fair, young and bold she deemed him yet she saw in his face something of which she could not perceive.  
  
Her foot stopped pushing at the peddle and her hands loosened. There he stood with their son, both tall handsome and darkhaired.  
  
But no, what was this? Noldor eyes looked to the tapestry. A single golden line had been woven next to the raven of his hair. Eyes looked to the string. The threads had changed again. The picture was not finished. The tapestry was not complete.  
  
She pushed again down on the peddle and picked up the rhythm. Her hands worked, guiding threads. Eyes watched attentively at the golden line. It grew and the threads intervened with one another, over and under, weaving, threads golden and bright. What was it? Hair, gold and fine, soft and it was beautiful.  
  
Eyes looked over the threads. They changed colour. A light colour, pale and subtle. White, milk white, fair, light and smooth. Skin, the skin of a fair, fair, flawless face. A face which slowly emerged, fair and white. Threads changed colour. Blues, blues that were bright like the clear of Eldamar, crystalline like the blue glimmer upon the lake. They eyes of the face they were, eyes jovial and mirthful, young and fair.  
  
Threads changed colour. Hues of red. Red, luscious full lips of the face, lips in a smile. Hues of white skin, white garments, white jewels. There were hands of alabaster white too, and she felt a power in those hands too, but not of her own power to weave. A power which did not labour with threads, but made music, a power to soothe the flame of a grieving soul.  
  
Grey Noldor eyes looked at the tapestry and she saw before her the tapestry she had created, but it was not a tapestry of two. It was a tapestry of three.  
  
Who was this? This was a Vanyar, a Vanyar she knew well. Her Noldor eyes stared. The Vanyar was a woman, a woman whom she knew well.  
  
But no, what was this? Noldor eyes looked at the tapestry. There were more. Eyes looked at the string. The thread had changed again. The picture was not finished. The tapestry was not completed.  
  
With the continued rhythm of her foot and hands, her own music she created, otherwise to the Vanyar she now saw before her. More thread of different colours, different shades and different textures mingled together, creating the right effect and tone. More hair, both golden and raven, more eyes, grey as his and blue as hers, more smiles, loving, caring, compassionate. More faces, more people.  
  
The rhythm of her music slowly stopped and her foot, she took off the peddle. Her fingers stopped touching the thread or the wood of the loom but her eyes were not taken from the picture.  
  
She had started weaving what she had known, but what was this? More had she put to her labours and a picture which she had no wish to see was before her.  
  
There it was before her, her creation. A tapestry, bright and fair with colour and it was complete. It was complete with the faces of people, a group.a family.  
  
A family? But how could such a thing be? He already had a family, a family which she had already given him. Unless.  
  
Yes, it had happened. She had not wanted to believe such judgments were made, but they were and such had come to pass.  
  
Her Noldor eyes looked to the Vanyar's fair face. She was beautiful and so were her children, the four she had borne to he whom she loved. Four.  
  
The grey eyes wandered to the grey eyes of her child. Just looking at him she could feel his great strength, her strength which had gone forth into him at birth. She looked at his father. She remembered how he desired to bring forth many children to the bliss of Aman and she was only able to offer one, one who was mighty in all aspects.  
  
It was not enough though.  
  
It was then that he remarried, he married her, the Vanyar whom she knew as the sister of Ingw?, Indis the fair. He married Indis and she bore him many children, many which she could not have borne him, for she was relinquished of strength.  
  
"Sometimes what we weave, we wish not to see."  
  
She nodded, her eyes still staring at the tapestry, recognising the voice behind her.  
  
"Indeed," she replied.  
  
"Come now Míriel Serinde?, much else is there for you to weave."  
  
"Yes, yes there is," she said, feeling the person behind her go out of the room. "Yes, there is."  
  
Her skilled hands, deft and adept, unwound the different coloured threads from the spools and made way for another tapestry which she might weave, taking down the last. Her foot pushed down on the peddle and the hands threaded the coloured threads to their places. She began to weave.  
  
* * * * * *  
  
His Noldor grey eyes stared at the picture before him. Beautiful bright colours of paints were before him, golds, reds, greys, raven blacks. The family portrait looked wonderful.  
  
Somehow he had managed to get his first son to wait long enough, angry yes, but still there long enough for the painter to paint him before he walked off.  
  
He looked at his wife. Her golden hair and other features looked most beautiful in all the portrait, but something did not seem right about her. There seemed to be a shadow cast over her. Perhaps the paint of the artist was not mixed right when he was painting her image.  
  
Finw? thanked the painter and payed him in gratitude and looked to the wall of his house. There hung a tapestry, woven by Míriel. It was the perfect place where the picture could be hung, but no, he would not take down Míriel's tapestry. Nay not yet.  
  
He would have to find another wall on which their family could be hung from. 


End file.
